Contents

Synopsis

A smooth-talking heart-creature named Ricardio appears wooing over Princess Bubblegum, making Finn jealous while suspicious he may actually be a bad guy.

Plot

Ice King has kidnapped Princess Bubblegum. Finn and Jake throw snowballs at Ice King's eyes which stalls him enough for them to replace Princess Bubblegum with Jake's butt, which Ice King still thinks is Princess Bubblegum and kisses it. Princess Bubblegum thanks the boys by hugging Finn (making him embarrassed) and honoring them with a party. Finn makes a paper crane for Bubblegum as a gift, and Jake says that Finn has a crush on her, which he denies. But when they arrive at the party, no one notices them and only watch as a heart-shaped man gives Lumpy Space Princess a massage called the Best Friend Massage. Bubblegum walks in and the heart-shaped man introduces himself as Ricardio. He begins talking to Princess Bubblegum about Plantoids and Zanoits and other science subjects.

Finn immediately gets jealous and he tries to impress Bubblegum by doing the Science Dance, but embarrasses himself by saying "I'm not jealous, I'm WEIRD!" when Bubblegum accuses him of being jealous. Finn thinks Ricardio is a villain, but Jake does not, so they spy on him to see if he is evil or not. They see Ricardio going into a dumpster, holding a rope and broken bottles. Then they see him throwing the Ice King into the dumpster, so they question him about being a super-villain. Finn punches Ricardio right when Bubblegum comes. Mad and upset, she takes Ricardio away. And when Finn begins to believe Bubblegum hates him and that he was wrong, Ice King then crawls to Finn and Jake and tells them that Ricardio is a villain.

He says that during an experiment where he tried to take control of Princess Bubblegum's heart, he messed up and lost control of his. Ricardio said that he was going to cut out Princess Bubblegum's heart and make out with it. Without Ricardio, Ice King grew weak but managed to get to the Candy Kingdom and pleaded to Ricardio for him to return to Ice King's body, but instead Ricardio threw him into the dumpster and left him for dead. Finn and Jake hurry to the Princess Bubblegum's Castle and find Princess Bubblegum tied to a chair, being held hostage by Ricardio. Finn and Jake then fight Ricardio and manage to beat him up. The Ice King crawls into the castle and places Ricardio into his chest. He then believes that Bubblegum would marry him, but Finn kicks him in the face which causes him to fly away. During dinner, Bubblegum tells Finn that he does not need to be jealous anymore, but Finn denies that he was jealous in the first place. Then, Princess Bubblegum says "Kiss me, Finn," which causes Finn to blush. Princess Bubblegum was just acting like Jake did in the beginning of the episode; she was upside-down with a picture of Jake on her dress. Finn then screams "NOOOOO!"

Cultural references

When Princess Bubblegum, Finn, and Jake are enjoying a spaghetti dinner at the end, the chairs they sit on resemble Pop-Tarts.

When Ricardio notes that Princess Bubblegum likes ancient technology, he asks "Have you ever used the balbaflonic laser to align the hybernotalist rift in the bubaflon plasmodial formation?" This could be a reference to the fact that George Takei who voices Ricardio, was in Star Trek as the character Hikaru Sulu, which had a lot of "technobabble."

The name "Ricardio" is a play on the spanish name "Ricardo", which translates to Richard. The suffix "cardio" means "related to the heart".

Episode connections

Ricardio returns in "Lady and Peebles," this time relying into more deliberate tricks.

When the balloons that appear after "Party Time," are the same images as the Balloons from "The Enchiridion!," including the angry balloon.

The beginning of the episode is similar to the ending of the animated short, having Ice King holding Princess Bubblegum while flying and Finn and Jake are chasing him.

At the first scene where Ice King was kidnapping Princess Bubblegum, the music for the title card of "The Duke" was playing.

Errors

When Finn and Jake slide off the Gumball Guardian, it is not wearing its cone hat.

As soon as the Ice King gets his heart back, he momentarily loses his eyebrows.

Production notes

This is the first episode aired in production order (i.e. the episode number and the production code are the same).